News about No One by Sargon Boulus

Those about whom we hear no news
Those who are remembered by none:
What wind has swept their traces
as if they never were?
My father and the others
Where are they?
Where?

What became of the man
who made beds and bridal chests?
Wood was so sacred to him!

Where is the silent shoemaker?
Hugging the anvil
chewing on his bitter nails?

His cave was full of old shoes
Did they bomb it
with one of those “smart bombs”?

Where is the coppersmith?
Where is the gold tray?

The wheat spike
entangled with the saint’s picture?
The horseshoe on the door?

What became of
Um Yusif
The midwife?
How many crying children did her hands pull
from the warm darkness of the womb
to the bareness of this world
Gone astray in the valleys of their fates
Soldiers fighting in lost
and unjust
wars?

After they had tired
of toiling in the mills of poverty
to fill the tyrant’s silos

Were they embarrassed
by the way this world
was made?

Were they disgusted by those lies?

After wars
After embargos

Beyond hunger
and enemies
Safe from the executioner’s hand

Did they finally go to sleep?
To sleep and
cover themselves
with dust?

[Translated from Arabic by Sinan Antoon]

Will it be so again? by C Day Lewis

Will it be so again
that the brave, the gifted are lost from view,
and empty, scheming men
are left in peace their lunatic age to renew?
Will it be so again?

Must it be always so
that the best are chosen to fall and sleep
like seeds, and we too slow
in claiming the earth they quicken, and the old usurpers reap
what they could not sow?

Will it be so again –
the jungle code and the hypocrite gesture?
A poppy wreath for the slain
and a cut-throat world for the living? That stale imposture
played on us once again

Will it be as before –
peace, with no heart or mind to ensue it,
guttering down to war
like a libertine to his grave? We should not be surprised: we knew it
happen before.

Shall it be so again?
Call not upon the glorious dead
to be your witness then.
The living alone can nail their promise to the ones who said
it shall not be so again.

Temporary Poem Of My Time by Yehuda Amichai

Hebrew writing and Arabic writing go from east to west,
Latin writing, from west to east.
Languages are like cats:
You must not stroke their hair the wrong way.
The clouds come from the sea, the hot wind from the desert,
The trees bend in the wind,
And stones fly from all four winds,
Into all four winds. They throw stones,
Throw this land, one at the other,
But the land always falls back to the land.
They throw the land, want to get rid of it.
Its stones, its soil, but you can’t get rid of it.
They throw stones, throw stones at me
In 1936, 1938, 1948, 1988,
Semites throw at Semites and anti-Semites at anti-Semites,
Evil men throw and just men throw,
Sinners throw and tempters throw,
Geologists throw and theologists throw,
Archaelogists throw and archhooligans throw,
Kidneys throw stones and gall bladders throw,
Head stones and forehead stones and the heart of a stone,
Stones shaped like a screaming mouth
And stones fitting your eyes
Like a pair of glasses,
The past throws stones at the future,
And all of them fall on the present.
Weeping stones and laughing gravel stones,
Even God in the Bible threw stones,
Even the Urim and Tumim were thrown
And got stuck in the beastplate of justice,
And Herod threw stones and what came out was a Temple.

Oh, the poem of stone sadness
Oh, the poem thrown on the stones
Oh, the poem of thrown stones.
Is there in this land
A stone that was never thrown
And never built and never overturned
And never uncovered and never discovered
And never screamed from a wall and never discarded by the builders
And never closed on top of a grave and never lay under lovers
And never turned into a cornerstone?

Please do not throw any more stones,
You are moving the land,
The holy, whole, open land,
You are moving it to the sea
And the sea doesn’t want it
The sea says, not in me.

Please throw little stones,
Throw snail fossils, throw gravel,
Justice or injustice from the quarries of Migdal Tsedek,
Throw soft stones, throw sweet clods,
Throw limestone, throw clay,
Throw sand of the seashore,
Throw dust of the desert, throw rust,
Throw soil, throw wind,
Throw air, throw nothing
Until your hands are weary
And the war is weary
And even peace will be weary and will be.

A Simple Man At War by Amy Stewart

Deafening hollows of cries echoed through his ears,
the hushed presence of a silent grief portrayed the Valleys.
Dividing the Dawn into Darkness to give a prolonged effect,
which the outcome of this defeat
lead all men to whither through death and agony,
outlasting they’re simple breathes
into now the whimpers of Mercy.

The colour through a mans eye everlasting and bright;
yet now an Anthem of a great divide.

Souring into the Nothing of Tomorrow,
forever fading into an everlasting dream.
Waving to the breathe of life,
falling into a loosing conclusion
that he will always fight for his last breathe.
The plague never loosening its grip,
taking more victims, holding out in spite everything.
The dreaded guns of War released on us,
destroying an unknown soldier,
through this dance of the Devil
was a battle carried out by very few men.

Here the Faith had a final warning,
until the ends of the Earth,
the fight had kept
In every desperate situation,
everyone does there bit to get by and being
inventive to an uncertain future.
Through the everlasting Revenant and still calling to you,
ashes and chaos will never break the circle of Survival.

As by Fire by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

Sometimes I feel so passionate a yearning
For spiritual perfection here below,
This vigorous frame, with healthful fervor burning,
Seems my determined foe,

So actively it makes a stern resistance,
So cruelly sometimes it wages war
Against a wholly spiritual existence
Which I am striving for.

It interrupts my soul’s intense devotions;
Some hope it strangles, of divinest birth,
With a swift rush of violent emotions
Which link me to the earth.

It is as if two mortal foes contended
Within my bosom in a deadly strife,
One for the loftier aims for souls intended,
One for the earthly life.

And yet I know this very war within me,
Which brings out all my will-power and control,
This very conflict at the last shall win me
The loved and longed-for goal.

The very fire which seems sometimes so cruel
Is the white light that shows me my own strength.
A furnace, fed by the divinest fuel,
It may become at length.

Ah! when in the immortal ranks enlisted,
I sometimes wonder if we shall not find
That not by deeds, but by what we’ve resisted,
Our places are assigned.